In this episode Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Prof Amanda Perry-Kessaris of Law at Kent Law School to discuss a workshop last November with the Cyprus Peace and Dialogue Centre (CPDC). Funded by the Socio-Legal Studies Association the workshop ran a small test on two concepts: citizens’ assemblies and interspecies councils.
In this episode Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to process facilitator and peacebuilding practitioner Michelle Parlevliet of REOS Partners about the transforming effects of asking a broad cross-section of Cypriots with differing views to take the time to imagine four plausible but very different scenarios for the future of Cyprus. The Cyprus Futures project was the subject of a panel discussion led my Ms Parlevliet at the Cyprus Forum on 4 October.
Cyprus is more innovative than you think. In this episode Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Cyprus Seeds Managing Director Maria Georgiadou, and Innovation Programme Manager Margarita Kyprianou about the wide sectoral range of innovators in universities, research institutions, and Centres of Excellence in the Republic of Cyprus who have been supported by Cyprus Seeds in bringing their research to market. Support includes small grants, mentoring, hands-on training, and networking opportunities to help academic teams commercialize their research by creating startups or licensing their technology. The most prominent success to date involves a gene therapy innovation that is awaiting much sought-after approval from the…
In this 14th episode of Figure It, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Mete Hatay, Senior Research Consultant at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Cyprus Centre, about the delicate question of the number of people who live in northern Cyprus. There has been no census since 2011, when the population (de jure) was counted as 286,257. The population has definitely grown a lot since then. But is it now 380,000, 550,000, 1 million or even 6 million? In 30 minutes Mete gives good reasons for citing one of those figures, and also explains why it is such a…
In this 13th episode of Figure It Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to James Ker-Lindsay, Visiting Professor at the University of Kent, Research Associate at LSE and producer of the popular conflict/international relations YouTube channel called “Prof James Ker-Lindsay”, to discuss some little known facts about UNFICYP - the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus that commemorated its 60th anniversary on 3 March. Prof Ker-Lindsay started his career researching how UNFICYP came into being and explains how it nearly didn’t happen.
In this 12th episode of Figure It and the third in a series of episodes devoted to energy, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Peter Stevenson, East Mediterranean Editor at the specialist oil and gas publication, Middle East Economic Survey (MEES). They discuss the announcement made on 15 February by the Italian oil and gas company, ENI, about its natural gas discovery in the Cronos reserve of the Republic of Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). What did the rather technical announcement mean? And can we expect natural gas to be exported from there by late 2026 or early 2027, as…
In this 11th episode of Figure It and the second in a series of episodes devoted to energy, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Ahmet Sözen, a Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) and a veritable ‘ideas factory’ when it comes to new approaches to the Cyprus problem. Prof Sözen is also part of the Eastern Mediterranean Initiative of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) and has recently produced papers with Diplomeds on Eastern Mediterranean energy issues. In this episode we discuss the proposals put forward in these papers, such “engagement without recognition”…
In this episode of Figure It and the first in a series of episodes devoted to energy, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen and analyst Andromachi Sophocleous put on their professional energy hats to analyse the regional energy workshop of oil and gas companies on 29-30 May.
In this episode of Figure It, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Dr Mustafa Besim, Professor of Economics at Eastern Mediterranean University and Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics, about the economy of northern Cyprus, in particular the latest economic and financial protocol worth around 240 million euro signed between the Turkish Cypriot administration and Turkey. What are the protocol’s strengths, what are its weaknesses and what should be the priority for Turkish Cypriot economic policy?
In this episode of Figure It, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Dr Nasia Hadjigeorgiou, Assistant Professor in Human Rights and Transitional Justice at the Cyprus campus of the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), about the many and often confusing figures cited by Republic of Cyprus officials about various categories of non-Cypriots: regular migrants, irregular migrants, asylum-seekers, refugees and even non-Cypriot children. What do all these categories mean? Do the government’s figures add up? Are the claims that people are being sent over the UN-monitored buffer zone (Green Line) by the Turkish government credible? And how do various…